THE SAVAGES

Year: 2007
USA: Fox Searchlight
UK: Twentieth Century Fox
Cast: Laura Linney, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Philip Bosco, Cara Seymour, Peter Friedman, Gbenga Akinnagbe, David Zayas, Tonye Patano, Guy Boyd, Debra Monk, Rosemary Murphy, Hal Blankenship, Joan Jaffe
Director: Tamara Jenkins
Country: USA
USA: 113 mins
UK: 114 mins
USA Rated: R for some sexuality and language
UK Certificate: 15 contains strong language and sex references
USA Release Date: 28 November 2007 (Limited Release - New York and Los Angeles)
UK Release Date: 25 January 2008


Synopsis

The Savages is an irreverent look at family, love and mortality as seen through the lens of one of modern life's most bewildering and challenging experiences: when adult siblings find themselves plucked from their everyday, self-centred lives to care for an estranged elderly parent.

The last thing the two Savage siblings ever wanted to do was look back at their difficult family history. Having moved out and escaped from being underneath their father's domineering thumb, they are now firmly cocooned in their own complicated lives. Wendy (Academy Award® nominee Laura Linney) is a struggling East Village playwright, aka a temp who spends her days applying for grants, stealing office supplies and dating her very married neighbour.

Jon (Academy Award® winner Philip Seymour Hoffman) is a neurotic college professor writing books on obscure subjects in Buffalo. Then comes the call that informs them that the father they have long feared and avoided, Lenny Savage (Tony Award® winner Philip Bosco), is slowly being consumed by dementia and they are the only ones that can help.

Now, as they put the middle of their already arrested lives on hold, Wendy and Jon are forced to live together under one roof for the first time since childhood, soon rediscovering the eccentricities that drove each other crazy. Faced with complete upheaval and the ultimate sibling rivalry battle over how to handle their father's final days, they are forced to face the past and finally start to realize what adulthood, family and, most surprisingly, each other are really about.

Featuring nuanced performances from an extraordinary cast, THE SAVAGES marks the return of writer and director Tamara Jenkins who won acclaim for the humour and humanity of her previous film, THE SLUMS OF BEVERLY HILLS.